


You May Be Down, But You're Not Out

by PiratePlume



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Being The Elite (Web Series)
Genre: Other, but i need it after that ppv, this is purely self-indulgent, wild west cowboy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 13:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20489390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiratePlume/pseuds/PiratePlume
Summary: This is a wild west cowboy au (which technically takes place after the all out ppv).  basically adam page IS a hangman in the old west and like, instead of losing the title he swore he was going to win, he lost a fight against an outlaw and now that outlaw is at large.  you encounter adam in a saloon, where you work, and find him down on his luck, reflecting over the loss.  you ask him to talk about it, learn his story, and encourage him to keep fighting.  oh... and then you make out.





	You May Be Down, But You're Not Out

It was busy that night in the saloon. The cacophony of slurred speech and raucous laughter at a volume too loud for sobriety filled every corner and spilled outside the open windows, inviting even more customers inside. You weren’t too terribly surprised, pausing in sopping up one of the many spills that night, rag in hand, as you smiled and watched the hard-working, simple folk of the west enjoy the fruits of their labor. Why else work day in and day out, practically breaking their backs, to not let loose and have a little fun?

“Little help over here!” The bartender cried out for you, and as you met his frantic stare, noted he didn’t have nearly enough hands to pour the liquor that was being demanded of him. Happy enough to drop the task of wiping up spills, you were quick to discard of the dirty rag and make for the other end of the bar. It wasn’t every day you got to help tend the bar, and you felt a surge of excitement at the prospect.

One after the other you served in-tandem with the barkeep, passing bottles and drinks to the girls who worked the saloon, coming by for something that’d make already loose men even looser. You passed drinks to already drunk men and cracked witty remarks any time they tried their damn hardest to throw raunchy suggestions your way, attempting to lure you upstairs to the room they’d rented. They took your denial in good spirit (why wouldn’t they be, so soaked in bourbon they’d reek of it for days), particularly when their equally inebriated friends picked them apart for ever trying.

There was one man, however, who inevitably kept drawing your eye. He sat at the end of the bar, shoulder to the wall, eyes down and fingers curled around his glass. He wore the common get-up of over half the patrons of the saloon, marking him a cowboy, with his black wide-brim hat on the bar top beside him and his black bandanna, still dusty from use, laying idle around his neck. His hair was all golden curls and set around his round, bearded face like a lion’s mane. It caught the flickering lights from the oil lanterns in a way that made you stare without realizing you were doing it. Spun gold.

“Here,” a voice disturbed you and made you jump. It was the barkeep, pushing a rag back into your hands. “The customers are squared away,” he said, gesturing to the patrons you’d served who were happily drinking, “get back to cleaning.” He turned away.

You told yourself you were chasing spills on the bar top and that’s how you wound up mere feet away from the silent, lonely golden-haired cowboy. It wasn’t that he had a look on his face that said he was deep in thought, and that the thought wasn’t a particularly good one. It wasn’t that you couldn’t shake how handsome you found him, and how badly your fingers suddenly itched to gently rub the texture of one of those wavy blond curls… 

You were doing your job. That’s all.

Still, would it hurt to indulge? You glanced the barkeep – busy, talking to one of the girls of the saloon you’d noted he had hearts in his eyes for – and then back again.

“If you’re looking for answers in that liquor, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.” You leaned in toward him when he blinked and his eyes lifted, lightly lit with confusion, and onto you. With an exaggerated whisper as if sharing in some secret conversation, you concluded, “I think you’ve got to drink it for it to solve your problems. For the night, anyways.” 

He tried for a smile, but it was flat and unenthused.

“Thanks.” He blinked at you, and you noticed his eyes were such a pretty shade of green. He was looking back down at the whiskey, wide thumb stroking the glass idly.

He seemed to want to be alone, but something in you pulled him to him. The sorrow rolled off him in a wave, affecting you, drawing you in and making you wish you could do something – anything – to crack a genuine smile over that face. Something told you he’d take your breath away when he did.

“Sorry,” you interjected, and shuffled closer so you’d be right in front of him, only the bar between you both, and smiled politely when he glanced back up at you again. “You seem like maybe you could use someone right now.” You ventured boldly, wondering if he was more likely to tell you to keep your nose out of a stranger’s business. Holding up your hands in mock surrender, in case that’s where he was going, you add, “I get it if you want to be alone with your thoughts, but sometimes it’s good to dump them on an impartial party.”

For a drawn-out moment he watched you, and you were trapped. He wore his heart across his face, whether he liked that about himself or not. You could see the struggle there, the want to tell someone, anyone, to talk about what was eating him up inside, but also the pride that kept a hard glint at the edge of his stare. 

“Alright,” he sighed at last, and glanced around the bar. “Not here.” Another look down the way toward the barkeep, who was still flirting with a girl who’d never love him. “Can you get away?”

You knew you should say no, but you also knew that wasn’t going to happen. You nodded, setting the rag down and giving a nod before scurrying back around the other side and meeting him halfway across the saloon, toward the swinging half-doors.

The night air greeted you both with some relief – it’d gotten warm inside, given all the bodies packed in such tight quarters. For a minute it was nice to walk along the wood plank porch, listening to the other bouts of late-night fun spilling from the saloon you’d left and the other ones down the long stretch of establishments. His boots scuffed the boards. You realized he was walking with a limp and favoring his knee.

He’d been injured.

“I had a job to finish.” He finally said, and when you looked at him, he was squinting off into the near pitch-black dark. He was seeing whatever he was reflecting on. “I told everyone I could do it. I _thought_ I could.” Frustration crept into his voice and tightened the tone. 

He was watching the dark, but you were watching him. The way his low brows dug inward, creating a line you wanted to reach out and touch, to smooth away; the way his teeth clenched and the muscle jumped beneath his bearded jaw, and strained his neck; the way he curled his fist momentarily at his side.

“It was my time. My chance. My shot.” He spoke quick, but his voice lifted, and the passion was bountiful despite the fact he didn’t say much. “I’m as good a shot as any. As good a man. As good a tracker. I do the shit that _needs_ done, no matter how hard it is, no matter how long it takes me. That’s what a good man does. **That’s what I do.**”

It poured out of him, and even though he hadn’t given concrete answers, you were beginning to piece the puzzle together. 

He sucked in a sharp breath and stopped, hands framing his hips and head tilting backward. He glanced the stars, and you stopped and looked at them too. For a minute you wondered if that was all he was going to say, and you tried to think of what helpful advice you might offer him. You glanced away from the stars and to him, at your side, and noticed how close you were both standing. A mere few feet.

You lifted your hand and gently reached between you two, laying it on his forearm. He was strong – you could already see that, despite the layers of dark clothing he wore – but you could feel it beneath your fingers, too. He glanced down at your hand on his arm, and then up at your face. Something flickered across his expression, something that tried to steal into the disappointment that’d clawed him into his sorrows, but he blinked, and it went away.

He pulled his arm away from your touch, and your fingers felt colder than they had before.

“Sorry,” he mumbled after a few drawn out seconds of quiet.

“Tell me everything,” you said instead, hoping to distract him so the rejection of your touch wouldn’t be lingered on. It’d been a moment of weakness and you wouldn’t do it again, no matter how badly you wanted to.

After a moment of private deliberation, he sank into the comfort you offered that he would accept – an open ear – and told you his story.

His name was Adam Page and he was a sheriff’s deputy a day’s ride away, in a town much, much smaller than the one you currently in. The town never saw much trouble until recently, when a gang of outlaws figured out the close proximity of the train which passed by there, the stagecoach road, and the maze of canyons perfect to escape and hide in bred the exact grounds they needed to take their riches and flee before they’d ever be caught. A few close run-ins had the town scared, and in one scuffle, the sheriff had taken a bullet to the arm that’d rendered him useless.

This left the young sheriff’s deputy in charge, and as fed up as he’d become with the terror these no-good criminals plagued his kind town with, it’d also given him reason again. He’d lost himself in the passion, in the assured cockiness that he’d get the job done where no one else had before. He’d thought he could take them on himself, at least the head of their little operation, and if he dismantled their leader, he was sure he’d disband the man’s loyal followers, too.

Only that hadn’t happened. Somehow, though he’d fought tooth and nail, he’d been the one to get injured and he’d been the one who’d lost.

That explained the limp, you realized, glancing down toward his knee. He looked at it too, and sighed.

“Bullet grazed me. Didn’t get the bone but did enough damage all the same. Doc told me I’m lucky.” He scoffed, angry at the idea of being told he was lucky. “One of the men I was with got me out of there and brought me here.” He looked around, back down the street, and then at you.

“The fight isn’t over,” you said, watching him, searching his face. He was dejected, and maybe a little deflated, yes… but to care this much about something meant he wasn’t going to just give it up.

“I don’t know.” He said, fingers still pinched on his hips. He gave his head a slow shake back-and-forth. “I didn’t think this far. I was sure I had him.”

“But if you give up now, whose there to take that man down?”

“There’ll be someone,” he argued, but you could hear the fight in his voice was lacking. He looked away from you, and his broad chest lifted and fell with a sigh.

“There already is,” you implored him and reached across the space that lie between you both again – not thinking – and put your hand on his arm. “_You_, Adam Page.” Your fingers squeezed gently around his arm, but your eyes didn’t leave his. “You’re going to take down that outlaw gang and stop their tyranny. You may be down, but you’re not out. You’re gonna heal up, and maybe it’ll take some time, and I’m sure that’s eating away at you… but you’re gonna do it and when you’re able, you’re going to descend and serve your justice.”

He hadn’t pulled his arm away, and his eyes were on yours, jumping across your firm, honest expression.

“How do you know?” His voice was softer than it needed to be. Intimate.

“I can see it in you, Adam. I can see that fight’s still in there. You’ve just been knocked down a bit. You’re still the hangman.”

It was silent, but this time it was a welcome one. The way he looked at you was almost with wonder. Your heart ached in your chest beneath that expression, and you lifted your hand from his arm, joined with the other to frame his face. His beard scratched the skin of your palms just softly so. Your pulse jumped, skin flush. You began to lean, but it was Adam who leaned in faster and pressed his lips so quickly, so hard against yours, you muffled a surprised peep against his skin. Your hands dropped to his biceps, squeezing gently against the cotton material of his shirt and feeling how firm the muscles were underneath.

His calloused palms were wide, weight firm as he ran them along your side, squeezing just gently so, and pulling you in closer. His tongue pressed your lips and you opened them, allowing him to thrust inside your mouth and stroke along yours. The desperation he was plagued by poured into that kiss. All the need to feel in control of something, to have something he wanted after losing so wretchedly, made him turn you and back you into the nearby wall. He crowded close enough that your back flattened against it. 

Finally, he tore away, breathing in great, heaving hot gasps of air over you. Your lips tingled from the contact and your heart raced impossibly fast in your chest. Dizzy. Wonderfully so.

“I… I’m sorry,” he started, but you weren’t about to hear it. You weren't about to let him bottle that passion back up again. He was going to need it.

And you did too. Reaching up, your fingers curled around that black bandanna he had tied around his neck, and you tugged him in sharp. Your lips hovered mere inches apart.

“You ain’t giving me anything other than what I want,” you said, “so shut up and kiss me, Adam Page.”

“Alright, no need to get hostile,” he laughed, and the tension relaxed out of his shoulders. Relief. In you, he’d found solace. A break away from the dark place his mind had begun to take him since he’d failed.

He pressed his mouth against yours so quickly, that chuckle died on your lips.


End file.
